A British man caught at Washington Dulles International Airport with cocaine-filled religious statues has pleaded guilty, saying a man from Argentina paid him to smuggle “dust” from Buenos Aires to London. Stephen J. Ingle, 47, pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria to one count of importing a controlled substance.
He was arrested at Dulles in October, after authorities said they found statues of Jesus, Mary and Joseph filled with cocaine in his luggage.
While in Buenos Aires, Ingle met a nightclub owner who offered him money “for transporting what he described as gold dust,” according to plea documents.
Ingle was to be paid several hundred dollars up front and several thousand British pounds when he arrived in England.
An associate of the Argentinian packed the statues and a leather shoulder bag with Ingle’s luggage, and Ingle did not inspect them.
“Although Mr. Ingle was suspicious of what was packed in his luggage, he did not attempt to examine the statues or leather bag,” the documents say. In the plea, Ingle admitted that he “deliberately closed his eyes” to whatever might be in the statues.
As part of the plea deal, prosecutors dropped charges of bringing a controlled substance on an aircraft and possession with intent to distribute. A federal grand jury had also indicted Ingle on those counts.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials and court documents say that authorities detected that his bag and two ceramic religious statues seemed heavier than typical items of their size.
Bricks of a white, powdery substance stitched within the inner lining of the bag and a substance inside the statues field-tested positive for cocaine, authorities said.
Customs officials described one statue as a foot-tall figurine that weighed nearly 10 pounds and depicted Mary holding a baby Jesus.
The other was an 8-inch-tall statue of Joseph that weighed about six pounds.
Both figures were standing up, on small, oval platforms.
Court records say further testing by the Drug Enforcement Administration showed that the statues and bag contained a total of 3.7 kilograms of a cocaine mixture.
According to his plea agreement, Ingle faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and could get up to 40 years. He is scheduled to be sentenced in March.
